


a touch of heavenly water

by elhoudini



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, M/M, implied character death??, mentioned pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-15 10:31:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10554840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elhoudini/pseuds/elhoudini
Summary: Jongin never thought gods could be so human.





	

**Author's Note:**

> edited: apr. 16, 2017 because there was a part that was total crap  
> this is a mess.  
> i hope the rating is correct lol  
> apologies for any mistakes that you may spot ;w;

There aren't a lot of people living in the area near the sea. It used to be just the shore and the water, but the communities in the surroundings had started getting too packed to accommodate new settlers and so the settlers had no choice but to start living there instead.

The little community that has been built there over many years has mostly lived off the sea even though there are also surrounding mountains where they can catch food. Everyone knows each other in the tiny village especially since not many visit the place save for the occasional adventurer. The tight-knit community also firmly believe in the gods protecting their town and pay close attention to giving offerings and tending to their shrines. No one knows whether the spirits had been made up by the first settlers in order to gain a sense of protection, but generations have survived there so they don't question it.

The Great Disaster, as the older folks call it, was a piece of their history passed around. The tiny house that serves as a school teaches it to the children, to let them know of the importance of the gods protecting them. The mountains surrounding the area and the sea had not been known to be kind to the first settlers there. When they had been looking for a place to stay back in the mountains, the people living there had warned them of the dangers of living there. They'd come anyway, and a week later, a storm came, wind whipping the waters to the shore and flooding the makeshift tents, and water running down the mountain causing a major landslide. Barely anyone had survived, and they began to believe that there were gods there, angry because they had settled there without paying their respects first. Some of the stories claim that after their initial offering, the spirits had appeared and accepted the presence of the humans, and that was the basis for the illustrations of the gods in the shrine.

The only shrine in the village is small, as is everything else. All the offerings for the gods are given there. Other people would say it's disrespectful not to have a shrine or a separate offering for each of the gods, but this has always been tradition, and it isn't like there's much space for more shrines anyway.

Jongin sweeps away some dried flower petals with his hand and adjusts the plates holding the fruit offerings on the altar. There isn't anyone around today since it's still too cold to be diving and most of the people have been hunting meat in the mountains or buying food from the little towns there. Still, Jongin goes and prays to the water god and the wind god (and subsequently the other gods) for calm waters. There had been another flooding when Jongin was younger, not nearly as destructive as the one in The Great Disaster, but it had still scared him a lot, and he firmly believed that it was because less people were paying attention to the gods now.

"Jongin?"

Jongin turns around to see Lu Han standing there with a basket of flowers. "Lu Han-hyung," he greets. "I can't believe you're here alone today."

Lu Han laughs. He usually comes with Zitao or Yifan, but today it's just him and the flowers. "I'm coming to pray to Lord Lay," he explains. "Grandmother caught a cold."

"Oh," he says. Lu Han places the basket up on the altar next to the fruits and they pray together, Lu Han's ending faster because he's only praying to one of them. He waits for Jongin to finish outside on the steps of the shrine.

 "So," Jongin says as he comes up behind Lu Han once he finishes. "Where are Zitao and Yifan today?"

"They went into the towns to buy food." Lu Han tells him. "I wanted to go too, but you know..." he gestures to the shrine. "I don't think it's even true that prayers aren't effective when they're not done here."

"Yeah?" Jongin hops down the stairs to start the short walk back home. He picks at a loose thread on his left glove. "What makes you think so?"

Lu Han follows Jongin down the steps, shoving his freezing hands into his pockets and trying to bury himself under his coat for warmth. "Last night, I prayed to Lord Xiumin for a snowless day today."

"So I guess your prayers have been answered."

The older boy nods. "Definitely. I think the myth is just there to convince people to go to the shrine."

Jongin shrugs. "I do it, you know."

"Hm?"

"Praying at home," Jongin clarifies. "Usually just to Lord Suho, since my dad's a diver."

"You've always been a devoted person," says Lu Han, hands reaching up to pull his woolen cap down to cover his freezing ears. "The gods should reward you for that."

Jongin laughs. "Maybe they will. Maybe they'll materialize and we can finally see if those illustrations in the temple are accurate or not."

The people of their village are all quite religious, for obvious reasons. It's hard to find help so far away from modernized civilization. Lately, there have been less people going to the shrine for some reason. Jongin's afraid to think of what might happen if the gods get angry once people stop going completely.

"Jonginnie," Lu Han says. "Stop thinking so hard."

"Sorry," Jongin mumbles, trying to ease the frown from his face.

"The gods are fine. I know you believe in all that stuff about gods ceasing to exist when people stop praying to them, but you're doing enough already. I'm sure they can see that."

He hopes they do see it.

 

The fish is still halfway frozen. It's still the winter, and no one ever uses a freezer during that time. Jongin's trying to start a fire, but the wood is too damp.

His dad returns from the nearby shed with dryer wood, and his mom hands him matches. Jongin says a quick prayer to Lord Chanyeol then lights up the matchstick. The fire thaws the fish quickly enough, and Jongin's mother places a pot over the fire to cook it.

Monggu, Jjangu, and Jjangah yap excitedly at his feet when his dad brings out the leftover meat to feed them. Jongin's mom wraps up some fruits and incense then gives them to Jongin.

"Your dad is going back to diving tomorrow." She says in explanation. Jongin simply nods and heads off to the shrine.

Diving is a dangerous living, but it's the most effective one they've got. Jongin will probably be a diver once he's old enough and trained, and he'll have to continue praying to Lord Suho for protection. 

Sometimes, he thinks, placing the offerings up on the altar, it feels like the gods  _are_ real. When someone in the village dies of old age (never of sickness because Lord Lay answers all their prayers), the day would be cold and dim and gloomy, as though the gods are mourning with them right there. If they are real, Jongin thinks he wouldn't mind seeing them. The illustrations depict them all to be quite beautiful.

He prays to the gods to keep his dad safe when he goes diving tomorrow. When he turns around to go home, there's a boy standing outside the shrine watching him with a striking resemblance to Lord Suho. Jongin nods to him once then runs home.

"Mom. There's a boy at the shrine. He looks just like Lord Suho."

"Really?" She frowns.

"Did the spirits really appear?"

"I don't know," she says. "It's up to them whether they're going to prove that they're real."

He drops the topic after that. Spirits have always been a mystery. Praying to them hasn't let him down yet, so he's not about to stop now. He returns to the shrine the next day and the boy is there again, this time dusting off the steps instead of watching it.

"Hello," Jongin greets cautiously when he's near. He hasn't brought any offerings today. He doesn't give offerings everyday, but he does come to pray everyday. He's pretty sure he has never seen this boy in the village before.

The boy blinks at him. "Hi," he says. He looks like he's about to drown under his coat. Jongin can't remember if he'd been wearing this much yesterday.

The boy moves to allow Jongin to pass and he does so, finding nothing else he can say or ask to the other without sounding intrusive.

He prays to Lord Suho for protection and turns around to see the boy still standing there, eyes twinkling with recognition when he looks at Jongin.

"Uh, I'll get going now, bye." He waves awkwardly to the boy and sprints back to the direction of his house.

He spots Lu Han, Zitao, and Yifan coming from the direction of the path to the forest, each of them with arms full of fruits. Jongin's mother comes back from the town with new threads to weave into fabric.

When he asks his friends, munching on the fruits they've brought, they know nothing about a boy who looks like the water god. In the evening, he leafs through a book in the school about the spirits in their tiny village and finds nothing.

Today, the boy waves to him first as he approaches the shrine. "Hello."

"Hi," Jongin greets. The boy peers at the flowers he's brought with interest.

"Do you come here everyday?"

"Yeah. Well I mean, not if there's a storm or something. My mom wouldn't let me out of the house then."

The boy nods sagely. "It's dangerous to be outside during a storm, especially around here."

"Nothing ever happens though."

"Then that's good, isn't it?"

It is. Jongin wonders how everyone had stayed so safe so many generations.

"Where are you from? I've never seen you around before."

"Oh," the boy says. "I live up in the mountains with my family."

"Really? No one from there ever comes down here though."

The boy plucks the flowers from his grip and arranges them neatly on the altar. "Everyone used to think this place was haunted. Still do, actually. It's why so few outsiders ever come here."

"Haunted by what?"

"By a spirit." The boy looks up at Jongin and he really really looks like Lord Suho. "A lonely guardian spirit whose friends all died because people stopped believing in them, and the spirit couldn't die like all his friends had, because he was the guardian of this sea. They say the spirit takes any human who dares to touch the ground where they'd lived."

"Do you believe that too?"

The boy smiles, and Jongin is struck by how pretty he looks. "If I did, I wouldn't have come."

 

It's almost spring. Joonmyun, the boy from the mountains, becomes his friend quickly.

No one else knows him. Somehow, he always disappears before any of his friends show up, and he never goes into the village with Jongin.

Jongin's dad brings him to the sea to teach him how to dive, and he finds himself spending less time at the shrine and with Joonmyun but he goes there everyday still.

"Remember that spirit you were telling me about?" Jongin asks one day. The grass is already starting to grow. "The one that haunted this place?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Why do people think that?"

Joonmyun looks over at him. He's still drowning under his coats. He claims he gets cold easily. "Because people had come here, to the sea. To catch food, maybe? I don't know. No one who came here ever made it out alive."

Jongin bit his lip. "But if that were true, then why didn't he take us too?"

"I don't know, Jongin."

Joonmyun looks away from him. Jongin is tempted to tell him that it makes him look like he actually does know, but he says nothing.

Spring is always welcomed wholly by the people in their village. They start to shed their coats for thinner layers and the divers start working full-time again. Jongin spends a few hours a day with his dad and the rest with his friends or with Joonmyun at the shrine.

"I asked my family," Joonmyun says as they fix up the altar after they've finished praying. "They think it's because the people who had come through here before were all looking to abuse the sea's resources. When your settlers came, they had been looking to live."

"But a big disaster happened. Almost everyone died. After that, nothing major happened again."

"The spirit was selfish," Joonmyun goes to sit on the steps and closes his eyes. "He found humans he liked. People with the kindness and patience and understanding that gods should have, that his friends had, so he found a way to turn them into a spirit, too. And he was content after that, to have friends by his side."

"You know a lot about this even though you don't live here."

Joonmyun shrugs, opening his eyes. "It's not like there's a lot to learn about it."

Jongin frowns. "Really? I feel like there is, though. A lot to learn about it, I mean."

"Didn't you say your school taught all this stuff?"

"Yeah, I did," Jongin rubs at the back of his neck. "But it's just all the things we know that have been passed down generation by generation. There isn't nearly enough information to account for its history."

"But you don't need to know, do you? You pray to the gods and they protect you. You don't need to complicate things."

Jongin picks up a pebble on the step and frowns at it. Joonmyun lays a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry about it."

"Why do you know so much about our history that even I didn't know?"

Joonmyun winks at him. "I'm sentient." Jongin can only look at him suspiciously.

 

"There was another disaster after that first one, but no one died." Jongin wonders to Joonmyun a few days later after saying his prayers to Lord Suho.

Joonmyun laughs. It sounds nice. "It was a burst of emotions from Lord Suho. The new spirit was... They'd been close, because he prayed to Lord Suho a lot, so he was happy and sad at the same time that he'd died and become a spirit as well."

"Wait, Lord Suho could turn humans into spirits?"

"Only for his territory," Joonmyun replies, looking out at the sea, "which is here. They become minor deities that help the official gods in overlooking and protecting the area."

It doesn't make a lot of sense, Jongin thinks. He picks at a loose thread on his shirt. "What of the other Lords, then? You mentioned that only one spirit stayed alive."

"They were human." Joonmyun lies down on the grass to stare up at the sky. "You know how history depicts people to have had an affinity for the elements?" Jongin nods shortly. "It's like that. In the Great Disaster, he took everyone with affinity for the elements and turned them into spirits."

Jongin blinks. "That's... Kind of messed up."

"Yes it is."

"Was Lord Suho a human too?" Jongin thinks it's more than possible, because all the things the spirit did, all the things the spirit felt, they were things that humans would have done.

Joonmyun's gaze is unreadable. "He drowned in this sea and became its guardian, so that no one else would have to meet a fate like his."

"Does it mean I'm close to Lord Suho too, then? Since I pray to him everyday."

Joonmyun peers up at the younger boy, and smiles. "Maybe."

 

Joonmyun is cryptic sometimes, but Jongin doesn't mind much. When he asks Joonmyun why he never goes into the village, he claims it's because he's just here to visit the shrine and that he's got nothing to do in the village.

"No one else has ever seen you," Jongin tells him. "Don't you get lonely when I'm not around?"

"I don't get lonely," Joonmyun says resolutely, looking at the village with something Jongin thinks is affection. "Not anymore."

Lu Han, Zitao, and Yifan have gone into the mountains again today to hunt around for springtime fruits and berries. It's always nice to have something sweet to wash down the taste of the sea after lunch and dinner.

"I'm going to be a diver one day," Jongin tells him. Joonmyun doesn't so much as bat an eyelash.

"I know."

"Diving is dangerous, and I may very well never come back if something happens to me," Jongin says seriously. "What are you going to do then?"

"But that's exactly why you pray everyday, isn't it?" Joonmyun smiles at him and Jongin wants to hit himself because he looks so wonderful. "Lord Suho— or any of the Lords, for that matter, will not falter in their protection towards their people."

 

"It was said," Joonmyun says one day, "that before you are turned into a spirit, the Lord of the specific element which you will be serving for would appear to you as a human."

"Really?" Jongin is munching on a slice of bread from the towns. "Did that ever happen here?"

"They say the spirit would only ever show themself to the person they were taking."

Jongin swallows down the mouthful of bread. "Oh, I recall people saying years ago, that a man had met someone who looked a lot like Lord Lay, and he was the only one who could see him. The man's name was Yixing."

It's already early evening today, and Jongin would normally already be home by this time, but he's still at the shrine today, having come later than usual after his diving lessons. There are fresh fruits up on the altar, and Joonmyun is still wearing clothing that's thicker than necessary for spring.

"I'd better get home," Jongin says, standing up. "My mom worries."

Joonmyun let's him go easily. When Jongin turns around again, no one is at the shrine.

In the middle of the night, Jongin's mom shakes him awake and he can see the fear in her eyes. His dad is nowhere to be seen.

"Pirates," she tells him. He freezes. They've had their fair share of pirates in all their years of living by the sea, and usually nothing much happened except for the occasional threatening which would eventually stop once they saw for themselves that there would be no good loot to take here, but it never failed to scare them anyway. "Your dad ran to the shrine to ask for protection."

Jongin quickly shakes off his blanket and stumbles out the door with his mom. Around them, the rest of the village people are also shuffling quickly and quietly towards their makeshift hideout wedged between two large rocks. He can see the faint outline of the ship heading quickly towards their village. If they tried to go into the mountains to hide, they would be spotted by the pirates before they even made it up.

He spots his friends huddled together in a corner and goes to join them. When they hear the pirates anchoring and coming down from their ship, they all hold their breaths, hoping and waiting for the danger to pass.

"I see smoke," they hear someone say. "Someone must have made a fire not too long ago."

And despite being unsaid, it's clear that the pirates intend to find them. This is a disaster, Jongin thinks. Not like the storm or the flood back then, but if the pirates were to find them... He doesn't want to think about what would happen then. His heart beats wildly in his ribcage, and it seems like there isn't anyone who is less anxious than he is.

He prays to the gods vehemently even if he knows there's nothing they can do about the pirates since they are not nature. He thinks he can see a person up in the mountains, and he edges closer to the crack to see clearly. It's Joonmyun, and his skin is glowing, but no one else seems to have noticed. Jongin closes his eyes and prays to Lord Do.

The rock wall behind them splits open slightly, and they all jump at the slight noise it makes. Jongin looks back up at the mountain, and Joonmyun is no longer there.

"Quick," he says urgently, herding the people into the opening. The pirates' voices are getting closer.

On the other side of the opening is what appears to be some kind of dome-shaped safe house made of rocks. All the people that are already inside are thanking the gods, now fully aware of their intentions. It's slightly elevated so it's a bit hard to climb into, but that ensures that no water would get inside it. At least, not enough to drown anyone.

Jongin's the last in line to go in, since he knows what's happening. It's strange to see Joonmyun glowing and just know, but if it had happened any other way, then he couldn't guarantee that anyone would make it out alive.

He's just about to slip through the opening himself when one of the pirates finally finds their hiding place. He calls out to his companions, but Jongin just closes his eyes and lets the sudden wave of water wash him away. He hears the pirates crying out in panic and fear and he thinks, at least everyone else, everybody he loves, is safe.

 

When Jongin opens his eyes, it's bright and windy. He's lying on sand and grass, and he feels completely at peace.

He hears someone walk towards him and turns his head slightly to see Joonmyun, still handsome, still in clothes too thick for the weather, extend a hand towards him with an expectant smile on his face.

Wordlessly, Jongin accepts his hand.


End file.
